User blog:Solidarnosc/On quality control
I know that given how sporadic activity is here from anyone other than me, I should be lucky that other people are contributing at all. But my frustration over the frequency of throwaway articles is finally reaching breaking point. Wikia is a major commercial website, to the point that many of our articles appear on the first page of search engine results; we have nearly 500 articles total, but when most of them are one-liners it makes a very unflattering impression of the IOT community. Much as I'd love (and have) to correct them all, I simply don't have enough time; I aim for at least one edit per day, but larger articles that require digging through thread history can take up to a week. So, effective immediately, I am laying down some ground rules: * Don't post one-line articles. If it's a major topic, give it the detail it deserves. For countries, give their politics, history (as applicable), a flag (if available) and a map of their location. For games, provide the setting, the basic rules, a link to the thread(s), and any cohesive narrative that has developed. Don't list all the player countries; readers can find that through categories. Future throwaway articles will result in temporary bans, the duration of which will increase based on rate of recurrentce. * Don't just copy-paste from the thread. It saves time and may be factually correct, but without proper editing it'll read disjointedly, redundantly, and sometimes not even relevantly to the article itself. You know who you are. * Simple titles best titles. When naming articles on games, use the briefest title short of an acronym; include subtitles and such in the body text, but not the title itself. Same goes with tags, although acronyms can be used; use Arabic numbers, not Roman numerals. For countries with a commonly-shared or recognized name, include an abbreviation of the game in parentheses; if it is unique and not unwieldy, the full title can be used. There are peculiarities for both but you should be able to get the hang through common sense. * Check for .SVG before you upload. Scalable vector graphics allow an image to be upsized as well as downsized without a loss of quality. If you're using a real country's flag, check Wikimedia for an SVG version and upload that instead. (Make sure your file is saved as SVG, and not .svg.png.) It saves me the hassle of having to replace it later. * Learn the templates. I know I'm behind on syntax instructions for some of the infoboxes, but there are enough examples up already that you should be able to figure out the fields yourselves. Most are copied directly from Wikipedia, so if you're completely stuck you can look up the relevant template there. Note that templates will only work properly editing in Source mode, not Visual. On a related note, while I have not had too much trouble running this show myself, I am not averse to delegating responsibility. If you are a) a regular visitor (not necessarily regular contributor), b) have experience in dispute resolution, and c) can tell what standards I'm looking for, and would be willing to serve as an administrator, contact me privately through the usual channels. Category:Blog posts